China Rules Out SARS In Mysterious Viral Pneumonia Outbreak While Numbers Being Infected Increases
Source: Thailand Medical News Jan 06, 2020 4 years, 10 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 1 hour, 20 minutes ago
Health authorities in
China on Sunday said a
mysterious viral pneumonia outbreak that has affected 59 people was not the flu-like virus
SARS that killed hundreds more than a decade ago.
The
pneumonia-like infection was first reported last week in Wuhan, a central Chinese city with a population of over 11 million leading to online speculation about a resurgence of the highly contagious
SARS virus.
The Wuhan health commission told
Thailand Medical News, "We have excluded several hypotheses, in particular the fact that it is a flu, an avian flu, an adenovirus, respiratory syndrome severe acute (SARS) or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)."
Wuhan police said they had punished eight people for "publishing or forwarding false information on the internet without verification."
The Wuhan health commission said that seven of the 59 patients are seriously ill but that none have died. All are being treated in quarantine.
The pneumonia-like infection broke out between 12 and 29 December, with some of the patients employed at a seafood market in the city that has since been closed for disinfection. No obvious evidence of human-to-human transmission has been found so far, it added.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Sunday, "The reported link to a wholesale fish and live animal market could indicate an exposure link to animals."
The symptoms reported in patients were mainly fever, with a few patients having difficulty in breathing and chest radiographs showing invasive lesions on both lungs.
Chinese healthcare authorities said that they were still working to identify the cause and source.
It also said it had put 163 people who had had contacts with the patients under medical observation.
Singapore is starting to monitor and screen all travellers coming in from
China and elsewhere while Malaysia and Australia have also indicated that they might follow the same. Meanwhile, certain European countries have already started issuing travel advisories against travel to
China.
South Korea press affiliates have followed rumors on Chinese social media that the Chinese government is downplaying the scope of the disease and many more people are actually exposed and infected with deaths already occurring.
In mid November 2019, cases of the pneumonic plague , a highly infectious disease similar to bubonic plague, which ravaged Europe in the middle ages, surfaced in
China. Development of that story was subsequently controlled and censored by the Chinese authorities.
Thai Health authorities have yet to issue any official statements about the disease or precautionary actions, nor have any local hospital or university group began issuing statements once again about them finding a cure for this mysterious disease! (just like in the past where they had spread fake news about finding the cure
for Ebola, Zika , HIV and had invented Cancer Immunotherapy! in conjunction with some non-credible local media outlets along with some local stupid and ignorant journalists).
Yesterday however, the AOT had installed thermal scanners at the arrival areas of Suvarnabhumi Airport to check on arriving passengers from Wuhan, China and the Minister For Public Health had also visited the airport to check on AOT health screening measures.
